A house built in the demanding environment of Alice Springs, Australia, has been honored by the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA). Dunn and Hillam's Desert House was designed to withstand the extreme desert conditions while remaining energy efficient. The AIA cited the project's "genuine sensibility to environmental management in this specific climate."

Dunn and Hillam was asked by its clients to design a house that would allow them to make the most of living in Alice Springs, taking into account its climate and spectacular scenery. The clients requested that the house engage with the surrounding landscape, that it provide multiple places to be use depending on the time of day and weather, and that it minimize energy usage.

In tackling the brief, Dunn and Hillam said it took an approach of "hardcore pragmatism and innovation, respect for the landscape and context and a belief in doing things better for the future." The house is cut into the rock and uses the thermal mass of the rock to regulate its internal temperature.

New mapping technology is helping activists and companies pinpoint exactly where tropical deforestation is happening, down to the individual tree. It's a potentially powerful new tool for identifying who's responsible for illegal cutting and getting companies to clean up their supply chains.

Solar power is one of those things that was once supposed to provide a fix for all of our power-based problems. Even though some companies are using solar energy to at least part fuel their datacenters, it has still not quite lived up to its billing. Solar energy has even been talked of as a way of powering our personal gadgets, too, but so far nothing has really come to fruition. Sure, calculators and keyboards exist that run on power generated from the sun, but that's a far cry from keeping a power hungry iPhone juiced all day long.

On May 18, Los Angeles took its first step toward having an Urban Fruit Trail. The Fallen Fruit team of Austin Young and David Burns joined forces with Heart of LA (HOLA) for the first installment of an art project that is meant to transform the neighborhoods surrounding downtown Los Angeles into more walkable, edible communities.

National Geographic Conservation Success for Disco Cactus and Many Other Threatened Species National Geographic With all the news of threats to biodiversity and species out there, sometimes it's tough to remember that conservation succeeds.

Every May we celebrate Garden for Wildlife Month as a way to remind us to prepare our gardens for wildlife, highlight amazing stories, and share tips with one another. Since the birth of NWF's Certified Wildlife Habitat program back in 1973, people have embraced gardening for wildlife by how they...

Lithium-ion batteries have made portable, rechargeable electronics commonplace. Unfortunately, they do have some glaring drawbacks, including heat issues, being made with rare, toxic elements, and the fact the technology doesn't scale up very well, which limits applications. A team of scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) is working on an alternative in the form of a water-based organic battery that is not only cheaper and more environmentally friendly, but also holds the potential for scaling up for use in wind and solar power plants as a means to store large amounts of energy.

The technology developed by the USC team is what’s called an organic redux flow battery. It’s a bit like a fuel cell, and a similar one was developed for NASA’s Helios electric-powered drones. It consists of two tanks containing solutions of electroactive chemicals. These are pumped into a cell, which is divided by a membrane. The solutions interact through the membrane and electricity is produced.

According to the team, the tanks can be of any size in comparison to the cells, so the total amount of energy that the system can store depends on how large the tanks are, which is one up on conventional batteries. The flow battery also has a better life span than lithium-ion batteries and its variants.

"The batteries last for about 5,000 recharge cycles, giving them an estimated 15-year lifespan," says Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “Lithium ion batteries degrade after around 1,000 cycles, and cost 10 times more to manufacture.”

When we think of wind power, we generally think of huge wind turbines sitting high atop towers where they can take advantage of the higher wind speeds. But Maryland-based Solar Wind Energy, Inc. is looking to turn wind power on its head with the Solar Wind Downdraft Tower, which places turbines at the base of a tower and generates its own wind to turn them.

Described by the company as the first hybrid solar-wind renewable energy technology in the renewable energy market, the tower at the center of the system generates a downdraft that drives the wind turbines positioned around its base. This is done by using a series of pumps to carry water to the top of a tower standing up to 2,250 ft (685 m) tall, where it is cast across the opening as a fine mist. The mist then evaporates and is absorbed by hot, dry air, thereby cooling the air and making it denser and heavier than the warmer air outside the tower.

This water-cooled air then falls through the hollow tower at speeds up to and in excess of 50 mph (80 km/h). When it reaches the bottom of the tower, the air is directed into wind tunnels that surround the base, turning wind turbines that are contained within the tunnels. Although the system requires large amounts of water, the bulk of the water emitted at the top of the tower is captured at the bottom and recirculated through the system, being pumped back up to the top with some of the power generated by the wind turbines.

In this way, the company claims the system can generate electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, when located in a hot, dry area – although electricity generation would be reduced in winter. Depending on the tower's geographical location, electricity generation could also be supplemented through the use of vertical "wind vanes" that would capture the prevailing wind and channel it into the tower.

Segun Oyeyiola is a student atÂ Nigeria's Obagemi Awolowo University who converted aÂ Volkswagen Beetle into a wind- and solar-powered car perfect for the country's extreme weather. The project was completed for a grand total of $6,000...

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, taking their cue from nature, have released a new study that shows that organic materials can be used to conduct electricity and emit different colors of light....

What if this were to become apart of home electrical, heating and cooling systems?

If only things weren't being done to make things so artificially comfortable for the sake of our fossil fuel and utility companies, we may already be able to undo some of the worst damage that's been done to our planet in the name of financial "profit."

What good is financial profit if it means that you, your children, your society and your species is wiped out?

Numerous studies have concluded that wave power could contribute massive amounts to the overall energy, but experts agree that it remains decades behind other forms of renewables, with large amounts of money and research required for it to even begin to catch up ...

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